DrabbleWriMo 2: Fruit

[igenlode]

It took *far* longer than it should have done to get this from 99 words to exactly 100, and to find an acceptable alternative to the repeated use of 'dark'. [Edit: not to mention the duplicated phrase 'from time to time'...]

Day 2 prompt: "Fruit". Unfortunately the canon date at this stage is somewhere early in April 1799, which rather limits the fruits available!

The three youthful conspirators were currently ensconced in the salon, where Roland had found a convenient pencil with which to sketch out the half-remembered treasure map. The dainty head of Mademoiselle Marthe was bent over the rough drawing with quite as much eagerness as that of Roland or her brother, and it was Roland who, as the debate progressed, found his attention wandering. Her dark ringlets tumbled in the most distracting way, and the flush of excitement in her cheeks equalled that of the peaches in the painting behind her, against which, from time to time, her profile was framed.

Comments

[watervole]

I'd have cheated and assumed that no one would actually count the words...

[igenlode]

Oh, I know they won't -- nobody is checking these! But it's a matter of personal honour, like being consistent about whether or not I'm counting hyphenated words as one or two (as one) rather than picking and choosing for each piece according to what's convenient; half the challenge of writing drabbles, after all, lies in adhering to the very exact requirement rather than simply writing 'about a hundred' words.

Also, it's very annoying that my software persists in counting apostrophes as word-separator characters, for example, so that "he'd" is registered as two words -- it means that I can't trust the computer, but have to count and recount every word on screen repeatedly every time I make changes until I'm certain I've got it right.